The first half of July was dominated by the World Cup and a
visit from family. If you’re wondering how Guardianista snowflakes like us who
live nowhere near a proper English pub watch the footie, it goes like this:
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Watching the match on the sofa while eating courgette fritters, fattoush salad and cacik dip,
and drinking homemade cider. So Guardian it's painful. God, I miss Wetherspoons. |
We didn’t venture far with our visitors. We just made the
most of the local countryside and (temporary) hot weather. (It’s since returned
to being stormy and wet most days – we’re not having a stellar summer.)
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| Armchairs dumped at the local lake. #FuckingRubbish |
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| On the plus side, we saw some wild turtles living in the lake... |
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...and a stork on one of the nearby houses. Here, seeing a stork on your house
is supposed to bring good luck. |
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| The sunflower fields are stonking this year. |
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| Sweet little chapel in the Heavenly Pastures park. |
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| A grown-ass man on a woodland swing, loving life. |
Sometimes our cats do weird things when we have visitors.
Like that time Pepper refused to eat her food if Rob’s parents were in the same
room. Or that time Pepper moved into the cupboard under the sink for a week. (She’s
not the most sociable lady cat.) This time, Iggy took to ignoring our laps and
sleeping every evening in the small wicker basket we use to dump our
phones/bits and bobs in.
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| This does not look comfortable. |
Meanwhile, in veg news, I harvested my first ever lettuce from
the garden. I repeat, my First. Ever. Lettuce. After five years of trying and
failing, lettuce is no longer my nemesis.
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| I literally made our visitors coo over this salad before they could eat it. |
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We're roasting down surplus tomatoes every week to blitz up and store in the freezer.
These yellow tomatoes make the most amazing golden passata, which I think
will look (and taste) great in curries. |
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| The courgette plants are ramping up nicely. |
And, finally, the back terrace is finished, giving us a swish
area right outside the back door to enjoy a pot of tea and survey our empire. Life’s
good.
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| Before, obviously. |
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| Work in progress. |
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| And after! |
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| Rob's homemade table. I'm so lucky he's a carpentry genius... |
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Since originally publishing this post, one of my readers asked for a picture of the
underside of Rob's table, so that he could see how it was made. Apologies to everyone
who isn't interested in the underside of a table. |
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| Hope this helps, Bobby! |
